The Wrong Three Words
by ozhawk
Summary: Three words in an inconvenient phone call from Phil Coulson turn Natasha's world upside down "Barton's been compromised". What the hell is she going to do now? Blackhawk. Rated T for minor combat violence and occasional cuss words.
1. The Wrong Three Words

**DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING. Although I very much wish I owned Jeremy Renner.**

**The Wrong Three Words**

"Barton's been compromised."

Focussed on her mission, busy coming up with reasons why Coulson should leave her alone to get on with her job, Natasha took a couple of seconds to process those three words. Clint's face flashed before her mind's eye, his blue-grey eyes sharp and watchful, that slight half-smile he saved only for her curving his lips, and Natasha admitted to herself, finally, her deepest truth. Her darkest secret. The one thing that had defined her ever since she took the archer's offered hand and let him help her to her feet, instead of forcing him to pull the trigger and end her miserable existence.

_I love him._

What she said _aloud_, of course, was "Let me put you on hold."

_Will I ever be able to tell him?_ Natasha wondered, as Loki promised her that she would die at Clint's hands. And she knew that she would let him kill her, no matter that he knew every stain on her soul, knew more dreadful ways to make her suffer than even Loki could have dredged from his mind. Because the one thing that would be worse than dying would be to see Clint die first.

_Is there anything left of YOU in there?_ she thought, as they fought in the bowels of the helicarrier, Clint trying to disable her more than kill her, she was sure. Tired, sore and wounded from that horrific clash with the Hulk, he should have taken care of her in a hot second. _She_ should have shot him in the back before he even turned to face her. Fury would rip her a new one for that particular idiocy later. If she survived this. And then she managed to knock his head against the handrail and he looked up at her, his eyes still that horrible crystalline blue, and frowned like a confused child.

"Tasha?" he said softly.

_Not now_, she thought. _Don't say my name – the name only YOU call me – now, not while that awful colour is still in your eyes. _And she struck.

She sat beside him until his eyes opened, back, thank any deity save Loki, to their normal shade of grey-blue. He fought his restraints, sweating, silent, until she said his name. Softly. Like a prayer.

"You're going to be all right."

The bitter chuckle he let out tore at her heart. But she kept her face still through what followed. Wondered if Loki had left any booby-traps behind when Clint asked her if she knew what it felt like to be unmade. Decided perhaps not when he told her he'd sleep better at night if he could put an arrow in the Asgardian's eye.

The worst came when he asked her why. Why she wanted to fight Loki. She was no soldier, never had been.

She couldn't say the words she wanted to. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So she said three different ones instead.

"I've been compromised."

He didn't understand. Assumed it was because of what he'd told Loki about her. So she let him think that. Told him that she had to wipe the red from her ledger. He'd accept that as a valid reason. Support her. Have her back, as he had since that day so long ago when he didn't put a bullet in it. Today, she'd repaid that particular favour.

Natasha watched him, of course. Watched him fly the quinjet, twice the pilot she would ever be, and she whispered silent thanks for it, because she didn't think any other pilot could have set that jet down in few enough pieces for them to get out alive, once Loki had blown one of their engines to hell.

"Just like Budapest," she said as they looked at the advancing enemy, to get a rise out of him. In some ways it was; hopeless odds, facing the unknown. And in other ways, of course, it wasn't. He didn't even look at her as he said;

"You and I remember Budapest very differently."

What else could he have said, after all? She'd gone to Hungary on a Red Room job and left as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s newest recruit. He'd gone to kill a Russian assassin and left with the unlikeliest of allies.

She watched him on the street, his hands sure as he nocked arrows and shot down the Chitauri. As he smiled and told Rogers to go, that the two of them would hold the aliens off. Watched the gentleness in his hands as he pulled children from a wrecked and burning bus.

It wasn't until the whole team was assembled on the street and Clint asked Tony for a lift to a nearby rooftop so he could direct the upcoming battle that she was sure he was back. All the way back. Because just as Tony grasped him by the quiver harness across his back, Clint looked at her. A slight smile lifted one corner of his mouth. He was so expressionless most of the time, despite the mobility she knew his face was capable of. But that slight smile was for her. Only her. And he mouthed two silent words no one else could possibly have seen. She held them to her long afterwards as though he had given her a pair of diamonds.

"Stay safe."

There had been no more time after that. No time for anything but fighting. Rogers was a good partner on the ground; solid and strong, if uninventive. Clint's arrows more than once blew away trouble before it got to her, and she knew he was watching over her. When she took to the sky he kept the aliens off her tail; blew Loki away when the Asgardian came after her.

And after the battle, he was there. She'd been just about to go and start searching frantically for him – they'd both lost their comms – when he walked out of the elevator into Stark's ruined penthouse. The others had arrived – amazingly Banner was still in Hulk form and not smashing – and until they had she'd been sitting in front of Loki where he lay crushed into the floor by Hulk's rage, pointing a gun in one hand and that damn spear in the other in case (in hope?) the bastard moved.

Clint had found a new quiver of arrows somewhere, probably down in Stark's R+D labs, who knew what they would do if so. At the sight of Loki he drew and sighted, and it was only the Captain's shield thrust hastily in the way that saved the Asgardian from an arrow between the eyes.

"Let me kill him!"

"No!" Thor and Rogers cried at once. Tony seemed to be thinking about it seriously, though.

"For _Coulson_," Clint hissed, and even Rogers lowered his shield, frowning.

"Justice before vengeance," Thor rumbled. "If his sentence is death, friend Barton, I will petition for you to be the executioner, if you will it. But he must face Odin to answer for his crimes."

And still Clint hesitated, the bowstring drawn back, his shot clear now that Rogers' shield was no longer in the way.

"Don't," Natasha said it softly. "Thor's right, Clint. We stopped the invasion. Justice before vengeance. This time."

He lowered the bow without even looking at her. And then snapped it up again as Loki stirred.

They were all hungry. Damn near starving. So once Fury and Hill arrived and dragged Loki off in chains meant to hold the Hulk, they'd taken up Tony's suggestion of shawarma and gone to that bloody awful restaurant. Natasha was so tired she could barely chew.

She could see how much Clint was hurting as well. He'd muttered something about crashing through a window, and indeed there were particles of glass embedded in small wounds on his arms. She picked them out carefully for him and glued the cuts closed while they waited for S.H.I.E.L.D. to arrive. And then he made her sit down and gently treated the cut on her brow, despite her insistence that it would heal on its own. Far faster than any wound he'd received, thanks to the Black Widow serum.

"Still, we can't let it spoil your looks, Tasha," he'd said almost mockingly, pulling the first-aid kit Tony had provided from her hands. She wanted to slap him, but instead she sat still and let him put two stitches in with gentle fingers. She didn't have to look to know how neat and perfect the stiches would be. It wasn't the first time he'd sewn her up, or she him, though he was far better with the needle than she was. She looked at him as he worked, looked at the scar on his neck that was a jagged reminder of how bad a nurse she was herself.

Clint braced a leg on her chair as she reached for another folded pita, surprising her. She glanced across at him. He had a book in his hands, leaning it on his thigh. That battered little Moleskine he carried with him everywhere, filling it with calculations on angles and wind speed and who knew what aerodynamic equations. The mathematics was beyond her. He took a pencil from a pocket of his cargo pants and wrote out a series of symbols that might have been Greek for all she knew. Some of them looked Greek, actually. He glanced up, caught her eye and smiled again. That strange little quirk at the corner of his mouth. She smiled back, a natural smile, too tired to mask the way she felt about him in that moment, and saw the surprised question in his eyes before she managed to pull her shields back down and look away.

Natasha didn't see Barton for days. After locking Loki up who knew where, Fury and Hill descended. They couldn't exactly restrict the other four Avengers, but she and Clint were S.H.I.E.L.D. employees. They were dragged in for debriefing, and then he was sent for a battery of psychological tests. They were frightened he would turn again, of course. She could have told them they were wrong. She _did_ tell them. Agent Hill listened patiently, gave her a sarcastic smile and remarked that she was perhaps a _touch_ biased in Barton's favour. Which was irrefutable, so she didn't argue.

Fury listened too. With more respect. And said that he agreed with her, but that it was better to have Barton's ass covered rather than not, wouldn't she say? He looked at her with that one black eye, knowingly, and she could only nod. Did Fury guess?

Even Coulson had never suspected how she felt, she thought. Coulson had thought they were lovers at first, which was damned funny considering that she and Clint had never so much as touched in any sexual way. Ever. They never normally touched in any way that wasn't work related, sparring, tossing each other a weapon or the like. Clint knew she couldn't bear any touch that wasn't entirely her own choice. He knew better than to try and hug her. It had taken her three years of working together before she would let him patch up her wounds in the field.

It was a surprise, and a relief, when her office door in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters hissed open and she looked up to see Barton in the doorway. He looked – normal. Black cargo pants. His favourite battered combat boots. Rust-coloured T-shirt, unzipped grey hoodie, a brown leather flight jacket as battered as the boots.

"They cut you loose?" was all she could think of to say.

He propped a shoulder against the doorframe and held up a hand. Keys dangled from his finger. "We got someplace to be, Tasha. And then we have a leave of absence. Four weeks of freedom. I thought we could head for the airport after we run this little errand. Get some tickets to anywhere."

She gazed at him. Taking him in. "Anywhere," she said in quiet agreement, opened the desk drawer and picked out a passport, and then stood, walking around the desk. "Let's go." She didn't need to pack. There was nothing she wanted that she couldn't buy wherever they were going. Tony Stark had sent her a black credit card with, when she called the bank to check, a million dollar line of credit. She guessed Clint had gotten the same. Two tickets to anywhere sounded good.

To her surprise, Bruce Banner was waiting in the hall. "Cadging a lift," he said to her quizzical glance. "Gotta give Loki a proper send-off, haven't we?"

Of course, that was where they were going. Natasha had known the date but not the time or location of the planned departure. Clint had obviously been told, though, because he drove them confidently through New York, answering Banner's questions from the backseat with his usual casual demeanour.

Clint slipped his dark glasses on as they got out of the car and Natasha glanced at him, seeing the hidden lines of tension in his shoulders that he tried to shrug away. She walked close behind him as they crossed Bethesda Terrace to the departure point. Saw him stiffen as Loki looked at him, and leaned over to murmur in his ear.

"Remember what Thor promised you."

A hungry smile curled his lips, and she moved away again. Confident he'd get through this.

The Asgardians were gone. She'd miss Thor, Natasha decided. He'd saved her from the Hulk; after all. There was no doubt in her mind that she would have been splattered into paste on the helicarrier if Thor hadn't intervened. She'd tried to thank him and been horrified when he knelt at her feet, kissed her hand reverently and thanked _her_ for closing the portal! Stupid _man_ and his sense of honour. He might come from a different planet but he was still male when all was said and done. She felt sorry for Jane Foster. As far as Natasha knew Thor hadn't even called her!

"My bag?" Bruce said behind Natasha, and she nodded, grabbed it from the backseat of the car and shoved it into his arms.

"You got a ride?"

"Yeah. Stark's offered me a job. A place at Stark Tower. He's gonna rename it Avengers Tower, did you hear? There's a place there for all of us." Banner's eyes slid from her to Clint. "_All_ of us. No matter what."

Clint nodded sharply, jerking his chin up. He opened the driver's door and slid into the car. Natasha smiled a farewell at Banner and got into the car too.

They didn't talk as they drove to JFK. Clint abandoned the car in a tow zone, leaving the keys in it. It would get towed straight back to S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway. Fury would expect no less.

"Where do you want to go?" They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at the flickering electronic departure boards. They'd been there for a good ten minutes, reading the destinations in silence, when Clint finally spoke.

Natasha turned to look at him. "Anywhere, with you." She spoke from the heart.

Clint didn't look at her. "I've never been to Barbados," he pointed out one destination. "What do you think? Sun, sea and sand?"

"Sounds good." Something inside her snapped. "Clint…" but he was heading for the ticket counter, fishing that black card and his passport out of his pocket.

They bought a bag and filled it with a few casual beachwear pieces each. Wandered into the first-class lounge, sat down at a computer and booked the most expensive suite in the fanciest hotel on Barbados. Drank champagne. Boarded the flight and sat together. The attendants fussed over Clint – women always did, he was so good-looking, and so charming when he wanted to be – bringing him extra champagne, extra blankets, whatever he wanted. He settled comfortably back in his seat and closed his eyes, asleep in five minutes.

Natasha sat awake throughout the flight, her eyes dry and sore, staring out of the window.

It was after sunset when they landed. Headed for the hotel.

"Let's go walk on the beach," Clint said, surprising her, as he turned the key in the door to their suite. "Ten minutes?"

She nodded. Grabbed clothes from the bag and went into one of the palatial bedrooms.

Natasha had to laugh. Clint looked insane in a multi-coloured Hawaiian shirt and clashing shorts. She'd wondered more than once over the years if he was colour-blind, but he always laughed at her if she said it aloud. Maybe he just had really terrible taste. She, of course, looked the picture of elegance in a royal-blue sundress with tiny yellow daisies printed on it. She didn't know _how_ to choose unflattering clothes. She'd forgotten to buy casual shoes, though, so she was barefoot. As was he.

They walked through the sand down towards the sea, away from the hotel's bright lights, and stood there, letting the cool wavelets lap over their feet. To Natasha's immense surprise, Clint took her hand in his. She let him keep it, let him twine his fingers with hers, feeling the calluses on his skin, the strength in his grip leashed as he held her hand gently, making it easy for her to pull away if she wished.

Natasha turned to him, lifting her eyes to his, though she could barely see his face in the darkness. _Now or never, Romanoff_, she thought to herself, and she opened her mouth.

They said it together. The three _right_ words, at last. At long last.

"I love you."

**A/N: All together now: AWWWWWWW!**

**Smack bang in the middle of writing Through A Glass Darkly, this came to me and I just had to open up a new document and bash it out. Is it good? I've got a vague idea for a sequel, or perhaps a second chapter, where Tasha asks him how long he's loved her for and they have a True Confessions session. Should I go there, or is it just right as it is?**

**I'd love to hear your thoughts in that massive empty review box!**


	2. Anywhere With You

**So I decided there is some more to this. One more part to come, I think.**

**Anywhere With You**

Dawn was breaking, soft spears of light brightening the bedroom, when Natasha propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him.

"How long?"

Of course, he knew what she meant. He turned his head to look at her and smiled wryly. "Since Budapest."

"WHAT?" She almost fell off the bed. "What do you mean, _since Budapest_? That's – nearly eleven years! _You married someone else!_"

"Because I thought I'd never have you." He reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. Fisted his fingers in her tousled red curls and pulled her gently to him for a tender, loving kiss. "When I married Bobbi I'd given up all hope. We'd been partners for six years and you still could barely let me touch you. Even so, I couldn't stop loving you. My marriage lasted all of five months, because she couldn't cope with the fact that I was always putting you first."

"Oh, Clint." Her green eyes were soft as she gazed at him. "I hated her guts for hurting you."

"I'm afraid it was quite the other way around. The only one who ever had the power to hurt me was you."

"I'm sorry," she whispered then, because if that was true, how _much_ she must have hurt him, all these years.

"Don't." He pulled her closer to him, wrapping her in those powerful arms, and she tucked her head under his chin, utterly content to be held this way, to feel safe and warm and protected. "How long have you loved _me_?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "Always, it seems. But I didn't know, couldn't admit it to myself until – until Coulson told me you'd been compromised."

"Ah," he pressed kisses to her hair. "I bet that wasn't pretty."

"Very much not pretty. I had – an operational breakdown."

Clint decided not to ask her to define exactly what that had meant. Instead he stroked her back with a soft _hum_ under his breath, felt her snuggle closer still to him, and smiled. "And you decided to do something about it – if you could get me back?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "_If_. It looked a bit touch and go there for a while, Barton. Don't you ever fucking do that to me again."

"I'll try not to, princess." She tensed against him and he let out a laugh. "Don't tell me that's a true story, that you really are descended from the tsars, the last of the Romanovs!"

"I don't know who my parents are or anything about my childhood, remember?" she muttered sulkily into his neck.

"That's not an answer."

"Well – I don't know if I'm the last. But I _am_ a Romanov. Fury showed me the DNA results years ago. He cross-checked them with the various European royals known to be most closely related. I'm closely related to both Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra."

"_Tsarevna_ Natalia," he murmured into her ear, and she shook her head.

"Don't."

"Not if you don't want me to." And she knew he'd never mention it again unless she brought it up.

"So when did _you_ decide to do something?" She lifted her head after a few minutes and looked in his eyes. "After all these years?"

"I – began to hope in New York. After the battle. In the shawarma joint, actually. You were so exhausted you were swaying in your seat. I was doing my usual post-battle notes, and I looked across to see you smiling at me in a way I'd never seen before. I started planning after that. Don't quite know what I intended, really. I needed a sign from you."

"And what was that?"

"When you let me hold your hand, last night. All these years, Tasha, you've shied away from any unnecessary contact, even accidental. And last night you were stone cold sober, not a drop of vodka in you, no mission, no orders, nothing, and _you let me hold your hand_."

She smiled, tracing his familiar, beloved face with her eyes lovingly. "When Coulson told me you'd been compromised, I vowed then that if I had the chance, I'd tell you I loved you. It was never the right time, though – I wanted to say it in the airport."

"You did, kind of."

"I did?"

"Yeah. They weren't the same words, but looking back I see that's what you meant. I asked where you wanted to go, and you said _anywhere, with you_. It's kind of like that thing where he always says _As You Wish _in _The Princess Bride_, isn't it? I never did quite get that, but now I do."

She nodded, her eyes full. "Anywhere with you," she whispered, "to the ends of the earth and beyond."

"I love you too," he said it hoarsely, lowering his mouth to hers again. "Always have and I always will."

It was two days later when they left the suite again and went for another walk on the beach, this time in the daytime.

"You realise with Coulson gone, they'll split us up?" Natasha said almost conversationally. "Partners can't be involved with each other. Coulson might have protected us, but no-one else will."

Clint smiled. "You might be wrong about that."

"Hm?" she turned to look up at him.

"Most of the agency has believed we've been sleeping with each other for years, Tasha. _Bobbi_ thought I was sleeping with you, even when we were married, despite evidence to the contrary. No one's tried to split us up yet."

Natasha blinked in astonishment. She supposed that many of her co-workers had subtly – and not-so-subtly – asked, or hinted at, her and Clint's being more than just partners over the years. Indeed, she'd overheard Maria Hill, and other agents who she could almost, sort of, call friends, tell male agents and trainees who had looked at her admiringly that the Widow belonged to Hawkeye and anyone who didn't want to play pincushion better not fucking forget it. She hadn't minded in the slightest because it had kept her from being bothered. But she'd never thought that it might have wrecked Clint's marriage.

He was watching her, following her train of thought. "It had nothing to do with the fact that Bobbi and I didn't work out," he said quietly. "We were never going to work out because I didn't love her. I loved _you_ and I used her as a substitute because she sort of reminded me of you. I'm not proud of the fact that I hurt her, but she and I were doomed from the start, and not just because neither you nor I made any effort to stop the gossip, for our own reasons."

"I know why _I_ let it continue, to keep anyone from bothering me, but why did you? It must have made it near impossible for you to get involved with anyone."

"To protect you. And," he looked away a little bashfully, colour staining his sharp cheekbones, "because I wanted it so fucking badly to be true."

That deserved a kiss, and she practically jumped into his arms. After a long moment they resumed walking again, his arm firmly around her waist. "So – Bobbi."

He sighed. "You're not going to let this alone, are you? I met her on a mission, I was sent to extract her. She'd been deep undercover for a long time, not heard about you and me. I was – hungry for human contact, I suppose, and in some ways she did remind me of you. Tough, capable, smart. We had a whirlwind romance, dropped off the grid for a few days after the mission finished and got married in Vegas. Not one of my smarter moves. I think I knew deep down that if I saw you I'd never go through with it. Of course once we got back to headquarters and Bobbi heard the rumours – needless to say things went downhill from there, but it was all over between us the night I called your name in our bed."

Natasha winced in sympathy for poor Bobbi. She'd hated Mockingbird from their first meeting, when Clint had introduced her as his wife. But the poor girl had never stood a chance.

"Yeah, it didn't go down well. She tried to kill me. I deserved it, I guess." Clint smiled ruefully. "She filed for divorce the following morning. Bobbi didn't speak a word to me for two years. And then I ran across her in the field, pulled her ass out of a crack, and we got drunk together and I confessed everything about you."

"Let me guess, she tried to kill you again?"

"Worse. She told me that she hoped I enjoyed being alone in that case, because you didn't even know what love meant."

"I – don't think I did until you showed me," she said quietly, and he tightened his arm around her.

"I need to take you back to bed," he confessed roughly, and she smiled.

"Let's go."

Despite the energy they were expending between the sheets, Natasha got restless again the following day. "Let's go shopping," she said suddenly. Clint, just stepping out of the bathroom towelling his hair dry, shrugged.

"Anywhere with you."

"You hate shopping unless we're buying weapons," she said suspiciously.

"Yes." He came over and took her hands, and then to her enormous surprise lowered himself to one knee. "But I thought maybe I could buy you an engagement present. A ring, if you want one."

"Is that – are you asking me to marry you?" she asked incredulously.

"Not if you'd rather I didn't. I'm just asking you to belong to me."

She tipped her head curiously, trying to sort out the difference, and he smiled. "We don't need the piece of paper. I know better than anyone that an actual marriage doesn't change anything. If you want to do that I'm happy to. Except I'd rather not do the Vegas thing again. It's entirely up to you. We can get married in the street in front of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with a guest list of thousands if that's what you want, or I can find some celebrant to do the job right here, or we don't have to get married at all, now or ever. But I would like to buy you something, a ring, or another piece of jewelry. A symbol. I already know what _I'm_ getting."

Natasha smiled at that. "And what's that?"

"I've had the design for a while now. Steve drew it for me." He stood, collected his Moleskine, and took a folded piece of paper from the pocket inside the back cover.

Natasha's eyes filled with tears as she looked at the beautifully rendered drawing of a black widow spider on a web. An arrow was lodged in the web below the spider's feet. "And what are you planning on doing with this?"

"Getting it tattooed right here," he put a hand over his heart. "I'll find someone to do it today."

They did that first: found a tattoo parlour that catered for rich kids on holidays and a guy who, once Clint had seen some of his work, he allowed to copy the spider, web and arrow onto his chest.

"This mean something?" the guy grunted, picking up his gun and screwing in a new needle.

"Everything," Natasha answered for Clint, from where she sat by the tattoo couch.

He made not a sound while the needle hammered at his chest, just sat watching her as she watched the mark of her ownership being permanently etched into his skin. And when it was done and the guy was wiping the excess ink away, Natasha smiled.

"You're mine now."

"Forever," Clint agreed softly.

They wandered the main streets of St. George, the extremely touristy little capital city. In the end Natasha found what she was looking for, a small artisan jeweller in a side street, manufacturing on the premises. She asked to meet the artisan and drew what she wanted on a scrap of paper for him, refusing to let Clint see it.

"Two days?" the artisan suggested, and Natasha offered to double the price if he could have it ready tomorrow. He shrugged and agreed, of course.

The following day they went back to collect, and Clint sucked in his breath when he saw what Natasha had ordered to be made. It was platinum, a delicate, glinting chain that draped around her slender neck, and centred in the hollow of her throat was a perfect little arrow.

Clint took the necklace from the box with hands that trembled slightly, and Natasha unhesitatingly turned her back to him and swept her hair off her neck. He clasped it carefully, his fingers stroking the nape of her neck, and she leaned back into him for a moment, turning her head, her dazzling green eyes shining up at him. He resisted the urge to kiss her right here, in public, knowing she wouldn't like it. Her lips were so swollen from his attentions over the last few days it was pretty obvious to everyone what they'd been doing anyway.

This time, it was Natasha who took his hand once they left the little shop, and leaned up to whisper in his ear.

"I need you to make love to me again."

"Taxi!" Clint lunged into the street.

**Always happy to hear your comments!**


	3. Home

**Home**

They returned to New York a little less than a month later to report for duty. Clint was himself as always, if a little more tanned: smiling, cracking jokes with the flight attendants. Natasha sat in her seat and slowly, methodically rebuilt her Black Widow persona around herself.

Clint watched silently as the expressionless mask settled on her face, as muscles that had taken so long to relax slowly tautened, and he wondered sadly if he would ever see that carefree girl who'd laughed on the beach with him again. He loved Natasha in every incarnation of her; the assassin, the professional businesswoman, the seductive siren in a hotel bar; but that girl on the beach…

They reported in to Headquarters. Fury was busy, but Maria Hill welcomed them back. She watched them with something like sympathy as she said that no new handler had been assigned to them. A muscle ticked in Clint's jaw at the reminder of Coulson, but Natasha stood impassive.

"You've been assigned permanently to the Avengers Initiative."

Now that _was_ a surprise. Both Natasha and Clint knew that the Initiative was supposed to be made up of superhumans like Cap and the Hulk, with the occasional specially equipped extra like Iron Man thrown in. They glanced at each other and then looked at Maria.

"Captain America asked," Maria opened her hand. "It was a little difficult to say no. I understand Stark has already incorporated quarters for you both into Avengers Tower. You are both still employed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and I daresay we will ask to borrow you at times, but you're no longer under our command. You may go."

To both of their surprise, she came around her desk and shook hands with both of them, smiling. "It's been an honour working with you."

They realised, once they were back on the streets, why they were no longer of use in an undercover organisation. There were _action figures_ of the Black Widow and Hawkeye being sold right alongside Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man and Thor.

"I wonder if the Avengers have any rules about fraternisation?" Clint wondered aloud, and Natasha glanced across at him in the back of the cab. Her lips actually twitched.

At Stark – _Avengers_ – Tower, they walked up to a receptionist at the main desk in the lobby. She looked up at them with an enquiring smile.

"Good morning. How may I direct you?"

"Tony Stark," Clint said, smiling charmingly back at her. "Or Steve Rogers, if Stark's busy."

"And do you have an appointment?"

"Uh, no." He blinked.

"I'm sorry. You'll need to call Mr Stark's office and make an appointment through his secretary. The press office handles all Mr Rogers' scheduling. I can give you their number…"

Okay, so maybe they weren't all _that_ recognisable. Natasha sighed at Clint's bemused look and leaned over the desk.

"Black Widow and Hawkeye, reporting for duty with the Avengers."

The receptionist actually laughed. "Pull the other one, you wouldn't believe how many times I've heard that…" she looked up and into Natasha's eyes, and stopped dead. She gulped.

Natasha hadn't spoken loudly, but a few other people waiting in line had heard her, and a moment later whispers were going like wildfire around the lobby.

"The Widow – and Hawkeye – the archer – the assassin…"

"One moment please, Ms. Romanoff," the receptionist gabbled, and pressed a button on the phone in front of her. "Ms. Potts, please. No, it's urgent. Yes, you're going to have to interrupt the meeting." She was speaking into a microphone in her headset. "Yes, right now. She asked to be advised immediately if Ms. Romanoff or Mr Barton arrived and they're _both_ standing right here in front of me."

Clint was starting to feel a bit edgy. There were a lot of people staring at him and Natasha and he wasn't even armed, past a couple of throwing knives in his boots. All his weapons and gear had been sent on ahead by S.H.I.E.L.D. He suspected Natasha was similarly lightly armed, and felt her tense behind him as he moved slightly, unobtrusively putting his back to her.

The receptionist was still talking behind him, but Clint tuned her out, tensing as a tall man approached him. And then the guy was holding out a piece of paper and a pen.

"Would you mind giving me your autograph for my son, Hawkeye? He's just taken up archery: you're his hero."

Clint just stared for a moment. And then Natasha nudged his elbow and hissed "Play nice."

"Of course," Clint took the paper and pen with a smile. "What's your son's name?"

"It's Jordan. Thank you, sir, that's really nice of you."

_For Jordan, love Hawkeye. Shoot straight!_ he scribbled, making the exclamation point look like an arrow and bullseye, and handed the pad back again. "Here you go. Tell him practice, practice, practice."

There were people actually looking as though they were about to pluck up the courage to come and speak to Natasha, so Clint was grateful when a young woman came up wearing a pass clipped to her jacket and asked them to follow her. He didn't do well in crowds without advance preparation and he really didn't like being the centre of a crowd where all the attention was focussed on him and Natasha. She, on the other hand, was smiling charmingly around and saying hello to everyone. Just another face of the Black Widow.

Alone in the lift with Pepper's PA – as the young woman quickly introduced herself – he relaxed a little. And then they arrived in the penthouse, which he'd last seen half-wrecked, with a Loki-shaped dent in the floor where Hulk had smashed him. It was refurbished, if possible, even more magnificently than it had been before.

The PA left them with apologies, saying someone would be with them soon. Natasha shrugged, headed for the bar and helped herself to vodka. She held up the bottle to Clint.

"Not right now," he shook his head. He wasn't a big drinker. Didn't like to feel out of control. The Russian in Nat let her drink vodka like water. She downed a shot with a grin and poured another one.

The elevator doors opened to reveal Steve Rogers, dressed in chinos and a white T-shirt. The guy seemed even taller, blonder and more muscular than Clint remembered, and he stiffened, slightly intimidated. Rogers came over with a broad smile to shake his hand.

"Hawkeye, it's really good to see you again."

"Please call me Clint," he murmured.

"Of course." Rogers hesitated, looked in his eyes, and for a moment Clint thought he was going to say something untactful about Loki, but instead he turned away towards Natasha. "And Natasha. It's wonderful to see _you_ again." He stooped to kiss her cheek.

_Wait just a fucking minute_. Was Rogers _flirting_ with Nat? That was a suspiciously warm note in his voice, and he was definitely lingering over greeting her, standing too close. _And_ Nat was smiling back at him.

Tony Stark came barging in then, greeting them in his usual, obnoxiously loud way. Clint fought not to roll his eyes, and he could see Nat rolling hers. She'd had to do far too much babysitting of the billionaire to respect him much. In fact she'd thought he was a liability; but then he'd proved himself during the battle. Clint wondered if Stark, too, had nightmares, and decided he probably did once he got a proper look at Tony's hollow eyes. _Not much sleep being had there_.

"… so glad you and Legolas are here, we've designed you a fantastic apartment each, we even gave Legolas a balcony…"

Natasha, seeing the look on Clint's face and correctly interpreting it as jealousy/annoyance, said calmly, "Oh, Tony, there's no need for that."

"But of course there is, you're part of the team. We want you here with us. And Clint of course," Steve said, turning to him almost as an afterthought.

"I meant," Natasha slipped between Steve and Tony and walked to Clint's side, looping an arm around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder, "that we don't need an apartment _each_."

"Oh," Tony said in tones of sudden enlightenment, "I _see_."

Rogers quite clearly saw as well, and his face definitely dropped. Clint was too well-mannered to give him a victorious look, but he did put his arm around Natasha and drop a kiss on the side of her brow. She looked up at him with her eyes glimmering with mischief, and he sighed, knowing that she was well aware he'd been jealous and he was going to get thoroughly teased about it later.

Stark showed them their apartments. Natasha had been set to share a floor with Steve. They exchanged looks and elected to use his, which as Stark promised did have a balcony. The other apartment on that floor was for Thor, when and if he ever came back from Asgard, so they were unlikely to get interrupted much.

"Thanks very much, Tony," Natasha said after Stark had bounced around the apartment like the Energiser bunny, showing them all sorts of fancy (unnecessary) widgets he'd built in and introducing them to JARVIS, the Tower AI. She almost shoved Tony out of the door and closed it in his face.

"But I didn't show you the…" Tony started knocking on the door.

Clint opened the door and glared at Tony. "Stark. Piss off. We're gonna have sex and we don't want an audience."

Tony's mouth hung open for a few seconds, and Clint grinned. _Well, it really was possible to shut Stark up. Who knew?_

"If you change your mind about that audience, I bet you two are _seriously_ hot together…"

Clint shut the door and locked it. Natasha was already negotiating with JARVIS about switching off all monitoring in the apartment permanently, leaving a single audio pickup to activate only if one of them spoke the AI's name. It was more a case of her threatening to just disassemble everything electronic within the place and tear the walls to shreds, really, which had the AI immediately agreeing to everything she said.

Clint leaned back against the wall, arms folded, grinning. _God_, he loved that woman. Even artificial intelligences were smart enough to be scared of her. She sensed him looking at her, turned and quirked one eyebrow.

"Well, come on then. I take it you feel the need to have jealous possessive sex?"

"Yup," he pushed off from the wall and headed towards her, scooping her off her feet and slinging her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. She could have dropped him in an instant but instead she yelped with laughter and let him carry her to the massive bed. "I'm going to 'fess up and say I felt all insecure with the way Rogers was eyeing you. He was definitely interested." He laid her down gently and knelt on the bed beside her.

"Eh," Natasha rolled her eyes dismissively, attacking the buttons on his shirt. "He's a pretty boy. You," her eyes blazed up at him, "you're my _man_." She uncovered the tattoo over his heart and put her fingers over it, smiling. "Always."

"I love you so _fucking_ much," he said gruffly, and kissed her hard.

Afterwards, they lay tangled together, sweaty and sated, Clint placing kisses in a lazy trail along Natasha's spine. She sighed pleasurably and rolled over, snuggling close to him. "Can we just stay here forever?"

"Much though I would love to," he murmured, "I suspect we're not just going to be allowed to slack off."

"You're being my conscience," she licked his collarbone. "Again."

"Always," he shuddered as her slender hands slid down his body. "But – I suppose it could wait until tomorrow."

Natasha smiled. For the first time in – well, forever – she felt utterly, totally certain that she was right where she was supposed to be. In the arms of the man who loved her, unconditionally, even though he _knew_ her. Knew her scars, her shadows, her broken, fractured self, and still loved her anyway.

It was the middle of the night, Clint asleep beside her, when she finally put a name to the feeling and smiled, snuggling down beside him.

So _this_ was what it felt like to have a home.

**OK, this one's definitely finished now. I haven't got any further to go with it. Awfully fluffy but I hope you enjoyed!**


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